Product Review: Toodledo

Ironically, I’ve had it on my list to review Toodledo, a to do list, for a long time. This is an OG productivity product in my toolkit, one I’ve used for many years and that came from an unexpected source—my mom. If you’re looking for a basic to do list without too many bells and whistles, read on. Toodledo may be for you.

Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, I earn a commission if you click the link and decide to make a purchase. I only recommend products I use and love.

When and How to Use a To Do List

My challenge with a lot of to do list software programs—and part of the reason that I love Toodledo—is that most to do lists try to do too much. Why pretend to be fancy? It’s a list. There shouldn’t be a ton of requirements here. And, while to do lists are arguably not the best productivity tool (see the scientific reasons for why to do lists don’t work), I would contend that they remain useful for the right kind of tasks.

For example, the reason that I find Toodledo so effective is because of how I use it. In my case, I use the product to track “life” tasks that don’t take a ton of time to complete (i.e., they stand a reasonable chance of being crossed off at the end of the day.) This includes recurring tasks like reminding myself to pay bills, buy groceries, or schedule appointments.

I use a separate product to track creative ideas (Trello) and progress against my goals (OKRs.app.) If I used a to do list that blended life aspirations with daily chores, I would probably abandon the list in despair. The “little things” would move, but the big things would stay put day after day. I’d feel like a failure.

While Toodledo is a great to do list because it doesn’t try to do too much, it’s also great because it doesn’t do too little either. A lot of productivity minimalists will swear by tools like Evernote, Notion, or Simplenote—even the Notes app or Google Keep. But, those things don’t work for me. Being confronted with a blank screen burdens me with the feeling that I need to keep my to do list pretty.

It’s the same kind of behavior that used to compel me when I was a student to painstakingly rewrite to do lists once I had crossed off a lot of the items on there. The lack of neatness cluttered my mind. And, the act of rewriting served as a distraction from, you know, doing the things on the list.

In short, I need an app that doesn’t overdo it but also reminds me about what I’m doing in the first place. This is where Toodledo comes in.

Product Philosophy

It’s a good time to write a review of Toodledo, as they are going through an effort to upgrade their web interface and their mobile app to make the product more robust, scalable, and reliable.

The leadership team is careful to mention that they don’t plan to make too many changes that would affect the user experience. As part of the dedicated, extremely loyal user base acknowledged in their marketing communications, I appreciate their recognition of the potential revolt that would ensue should they try to mess too much with a good thing.

Like the product itself, Toodledo’s product philosophy is simple. Toodledo offers a set of tools to increase productivity and organize your life.

Features

While I’ve been focused on the to do list (or tasks) part of Toodledo, the product includes a set of productivity tools that goes beyond your garden variety to do list. Beyond tasks (what you would consider a classic to do list), Toodledo also offers the ability to create notes, outlines, lists, and habits. You use the drop-down menu in the upper left corner of the screen to toggle between the different views.

Tasks. The “All Tasks” view shows you a comprehensive view of the tasks you’ve created, organized by date. You can see what’s assigned for today, tomorrow, the next 7 days, and then by month. You can also filter the view using the options on the left navigation panel to show tasks that have been recently added, completed, and modified.

Creating a new task is easy peasy. Click the “Add Task” button at the top of the screen. A blank task appears. You can enter the task name, assign it to a folder of your choosing, assign a due date, and then indicate whether the task is one-time or recurring.

How to add a new task in Toodledo

In addition to adjusting views via the left navigation panel, you can also filter tasks using the top navigation menu. For example, you can choose to display only the tasks that you’ve assigned to a specific folder.

How to filter tasks by folder in Toodledo

You can also choose to filter tasks by due date or to display them in a calendar view (note: the calendar isn’t terribly useful except as a gauge of capacity. It simply uses dots to indicate how many tasks you’ve assigned yourself per day.)

Notes. The notes section is similiar to the Notes app or Google Keep. In this section, you can create notes and add content free form. Once you’ve created a note, you have the option to edit the title, duplicate the note, or delete it entirely.

Outline. The outline section offers a value proposition similiar to that of mind mapping software, like Mindly. You can use the outline to structure content into a hierarchy. This is useful when you have an idea for a larger project that you want to break down into a series of more granular to do list items.

Lists. In the lists section, you can create customized lists using specific fields. You can either create a list from scratch or build one using a prepopulated template. Examples of built-in list templates include reading list, grocery list, packing list, and a food log. To give you an idea of how the custom fields work, the reading list template includes title, author, whether you’ve read the book, your rating, and the date you finished the book.

Habits. The habits section is, in a word, cool 🤓 It’s designed primarily for tracking daily habits, complete with a visual representation of a chain so you can see your streaks in action. What I like most about the habits section of Toodledo is that it visualizes your progress in multiple ways. Not only can you see the streak, but you can also see a weekly progress report, a calendar view of monthly progress, and a chart view front and center.

How to view habits in Toodledo

I’ve been sleeping on the Habits view of Toodledo, instead opting to use the Tasks view to track habits that I’m working to establish. Once I’ve successfully incorporated the habit into my daily routine and it becomes an afterthought, I cease to track it entirely. Switching to tracking these nascent habits in the Habits view might offer a more specialized way to keep abreast of the habits I’m trying to build.

The con to that approach is that I’d have to train my brain to toggle to the Habits view. Otherwise, out of sight is out of mind. Since I’m already trying to train my brain to perform the new habit, this might be too much. TBD.

Product Pricing

The free Toodledo plan works well for me. I use it to track an unlimited number of recurring tasks across web and mobile. If you’re collaborating with someone else, it might be worth investing in the standard plan, which is super cheap ($3/month) and includes graphs, subtasks, integrations with third party apps, more capacity across views, and a longer task tracking history. Sign up using this link.

Pricing options for Toodledo

The Plus plan looks ideal for small businesses of up to five collaborators, offering a scheduler, the ability to add tasks via email (clutch), and file storage capabilities. Plus, you get priority support. If none of those plans work for you, contact Toodledo for more extensive business options. In the meantime, happy tracking!